This article was prepared for an airline magazine and explores our experience of time.

by Anni Snyman

Have you got time? I know you made it on time – you’re on the plane. Now, suddenly, you’ve got time on your hands. And it happens to take the shape of this article. Time to kill – and I’ve got to give you the means to do it.

Just imagine the headlines: "Frequent Flyer Kills Time" – and the CSI episode – that would be memorable! You and I could get close to committing the perfect crime: no body, no suspicious DNA traces under your fingernails, no need to surreptitiously swap your used glass with the tannie’s next to you. Especially since she is in on the deal.

In any case, who would care if there were one less dimension on the planet? Have you ever heard anyone exclaim just how much they enjoy time? "Oh, I just looove the way you’ve crumpled and shrunk the last couple of decades, my dear!" No – no-one’s lost anything there. Nor did they gain anything, I’m afraid – now here you might run into a spot of bother: Time is Money… I can think of a couple of fellows that could be mightily upset if you tampered with their favourite substance.

That’s not all: Money is Power. Knowledge is also Power! It seems you’ve done a mob-style execution of an entire family! And they’re connected! Very soon we’ll have pretty girls with purple flashlights crawling all over this place bagging every oily bit of headrest blotting paper, asking uncomfortable questions, like: "When was the last time you saw Time?"

They’ll set up weird hypothetical time-killing experiments and deduce that the perfect time-killing weapon is love. For time ceases to exist when you look into a loved one’s eyes across a table. It erases itself when the memory of shared laughter steals into your mind at the chords of a certain song. Time lasts forever when you do something you love. I see you understand these concepts. Then you must be guilty of wielding that weapon. Have you got love on you? Well, have you?

"Have you got a record? When last did you do Time?"

These are questions only you could answer – since only you know whether you’re flying towards or away from doom or delivery. Is love your destination or did you leave it behind? Have you got the real thing? That magic essence that can wake century old sleeping spinsters – the kiss of true love that will bring meaning to an entire lifetime?

Or has it just become a very, very long time? Doing a Meatloaf on us, are you? "Praying for the end of time? To hurry up and arrive?" Obviously you’re on a doomed flight, then. No need for cuffs and drawn-out court cases. They’ll classify you as an innocent bystander. Take your name and address just in case they need you to appear as a witness and give you a card with a number to call if you remember something important. Better check your watch, get your coat and start tapping your fingers on the armrest. You’ll be descending soon. It’s about time.

Extract adapted from material explored in the Ansisters constellation (FACE 2005) – to be exhibited at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg during August 2005.

Posted 12 July 2005, www.face.org.za, author: Anni Snyman.